Despite the availability of inexpensive photographic cameras which allow amateur photographers to take photographs, there remains a demand for studio portrait photography. Studio portrait photography is still popular because beautiful, accurate portraits of individuals are best made under controlled lighting conditions with high quality, professional photographic equipment.
Traditionally, a portrait photographer took various poses of a subject, developed the photographs at a later time, and had the subject return for approval of "proofs." The proofs selected by the subject would then be reproduced in greater quantity and in different sizes as desired by the subject/customer. Needless to say, this was a very time-consuming process that required lots of effort. Furthermore, occasionally no proofs would be satisfactory to the customer, or through some mishap no photographs would be suitable, and another photographic posing session would have to be scheduled.
"One-hour" development of photographic film is now commonplace thanks to automation. It is possible, therefore, to provide a customer with proofs relatively quickly. However, the problem remains that there may be problems with the actual images of the customer on the photographic proofs. Accordingly, prior studio photography systems have been developed that allow a photography subject to view, such as on a television or video monitor, a likeness similar to the photographic image captured on a film negative, whereby a decision can be made whether or not to develop a particular negative.
To facilitate posing, photographers currently use various reference marks scribed or written directly on a ground glass viewfinder or on an acetate overlay placed on the ground glass. Furthermore, in conventional photography a photographer must manually or through servomotors move and adjust both the camera and the lens settings.
In conventional studio photography, when a take occurs there is an intense strobe flash light for providing the best image of the subject to be photographed and videoed. Conventionally, the photographer or a camera mechanism physically adjusts the f-stop of the video camera lens to compensate for the increased amount of light which will result from the strobe flash, and then physically adjust the f-stop after the take back to the appropriate setting for the less intense ambient studio modeling lights. If the settings on the video camera were always set for the high intensity strobe flash, the video images would be severely underexposed for the modeling light live image. Conversely, if the video camera gain were set for the ambient modeling lights, the flash strobe lights would overexpose the captured image. Consequently, many video cameras have automatic gain controls built into the circuitry, but none responds quickly enough to the changing lighting conditions of a strobe flash to be of any practical use. Accordingly, it has been suggested by those practicing video capture that the studio photography system be set to capture the video image just before the high intensity strobes go off by using the modeling light. This scheme results in a video image which is captured earlier in time than the photographic image; hence, necessarily, the video image and the photographic image, although similar, are not identical.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,835,563 to Larish discloses a portrait studio system for simultaneously recording a color video image of the portrait subject as seen by a photographic camera. That system includes a lens for directing image-forming light from a portrait subject to both a photographic camera and a video camera. A beam splitter directs part of the image-forming light to the video camera while allowing part of the image-forming light to expose a piece of photographic film. When a portrait photograph is to be taken, the operator depresses a push-button on the camera whereby the camera circuitry (in cooperation with a microprocessor) actuates flashlighting of the portrait subject, opens the shutter of the camera, and simultaneously records a video image of the portrait subject. That system works well yet does not take into account timing differences of the video and photographic cameras. There is a need for an even more accurate system for consistently recording identical electronic images of a subject corresponding to the photographic images captured on a photosensitive medium.
Conventional video cameras have a continuous scanning cycle in which images are constantly being temporarily stored by a charge coupled device (CCD) which then downloads the image for storage on video film or into the memory of a computer. When the CCD is being discharged into the vertical register memory, the CCD is unable to record any new video images; i.e., the video device is in a black, download register state, or vertical blanking state, and is incapable of accepting new image data.
Accordingly, problems arise in conventional still photography when a photographic camera is used in conjunction with a video camera for recording video images of a portrait subject so that the subject can view images of what is supposed to be on the photographic film negative. It is desirable to have the portrait subject view these video images so that the subject can decide on which ones of the photographic negatives to develop or print.
If the video image and the photographic image are not identical, the video image corresponding to the photographic negative cannot be selected with certainty. For example, if those two images do not correspond exactly, the video image may look fine with the portrait subject wide-eyed and smiling, while the photographic image recorded at a slightly different time period may show the portrait subject's eyes closed.
In addition, it is desirable to use photographic flash or strobe illumination of a portrait studio subject to achieve high quality video and photographic images. High intensity lighting is desired, as there is a substantial loss of light reflected from the portrait subject into the photographic camera and video camera respectively, owing to the multiple lenses commonly found in such equipment.
Further, high intensity light is desirable owing to the fact that the electric charge on a CCD dissipates (leaks) over time and results in lower voltage and intensity; consequently, the greater the initial illumination and, hence, electric charge on a CCD, the greater the remaining electrical charge will be when the CCD is downloaded into electronic storage.
Accordingly, earlier efforts have been directed at controlling different aspects of recording video images, capturing photographic images, and subject illumination, especially when high intensity flash or strobe lighting is used.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,805,037 to Noble et al. discloses controlling the timing of a video camera and preventing transfer of a charge from a CCD to the vertical registers when an image take signal is received in order to prevent an illuminating flash from occurring during the video blanking period or to prevent the flash from being split between the first and second scanning (video) fields.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,006,871 to Noble discloses a system in which a flash strobe is delayed during and prior to the video blanking period so that the flash occurs entirely during field one or field two.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,008,697 to Noble includes a video timing generator (clock) for a video camera, and during the flash the system interrupts the clock generator so image transfer does not take place from a CCD to the vertical registers.
The known prior efforts have been directed at delaying the operation of different parts of the systems within the normal take sequence; none of the conventional devices has coordinated the various elements in order to have the video image and photographic image captured at the identical and optimal point in time.